6 Sales Tips for Small Businesses

You’ve got an awesome product or service. You’ve developed a distinguishable brand that reflects what your business stands for. You’ve identified your target audience. You’ve started forming a sales team. Now it’s time to make some sales. But what sales techniques should you use?

6 Tips That Will Help You Sell More 

Sales are the lifeblood of businesses. Yes, existing customers can be retained but no customer is guaranteed to last forever, no matter how loyal. The bottom line is that businesses need new customers, so having effective sales techniques is a must for your sales team.

There is a lot of advice flying around about how to gain a prospect’s attention, support the decision making process, and make sales conversations successful. We’ve cut through the noise and put together a list of the best sales tips you should be using in your business to garner stellar results.

1. Know Your Customers

If you try to sell to anyone and everyone, you’ll end up selling to no one. A compelling sales pitch is one that is specific and meaningful so your ideal client can identify with it. Your prospects should feel like you’re speaking to their personal pain points and your product or service is of unique value to them. Your customers determine the whole sales process—from how you generate to how you close leads.

You need to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes. Conduct customer research to gain a thorough understanding of your prospect’s demographics (who are you looking for), psychographics (what is their decision making process), goals (what do they want) and pain points (what do they need help with). Use surveys and analytics to gather information about leads throughout the sales cycle.

Then you can customize the pitch your sales reps use. This will allow you to use sales techniques that resonate with your ideal clients. The customer research will inform the language, benefits, and objections used in sales conversations. Personalize your pitch to your specific target audience as much as possible. Leads will be so much more receptive to it.

2. Focus on Benefits

As an expert in what you do, of course you get excited about how your solution works. For a prospective customer, the features of your product or service aren’t an important part of their buying process. They want to know what it will do for them.

Does it solve their biggest pain points? Does it fulfill their goals? That’s what matters most. A great salesperson focuses on what the solution does, not how it does it.

A sales pitch that is too jargon-heavy will switch off buyers. They can’t understand what they’re being told, never mind relate it to their life and what they’re looking for. The bottom line is that they need to understand the impact your product or service has on them.

3. Build Relationships

Behind the fancy terminology of potential customers and sales reps, we are all just people. So a sales conversation is a discussion between two people. Sometimes even the best salespeople forget that.

The spark of connection between two people building a relationship can’t be replicated by any sales technique. Building relationships with your customers creates trust and loyalty like nothing else. The emotional connection created by relationship-building is priceless.

Build rapport through personalization. Individual customers should feel like you are talking to them directly about their specific situation. It makes the conversation feel more real. A relationship isn’t built during one sales meeting. Multiple interactions are required. Follow up with prospects so feel taken care of.

For your clients, go the extra mile. Leverage the fact that research has found that 96% of customers say customer service impacts brand loyalty. If you want to maintain and strengthen relationships, you need to implement regular touchpoints.

4. Be Confident

Who would buy from a sales person that doesn’t seem to believe in what they’re selling? It’s a red flag. So, your sales reps should be communicating with confidence. If they don’t seem to be sold on what they’re selling, it’s going to be nearly impossible to sell others on it. 

They should be sharing their excitement about what they’re offering on sales calls. That infectious energy goes a long way. If pitted up against your competitors, most prospects would choose to buy from the sales team that leads sales conversations with confidence. It’s easier to believe confident sales reps.

5. Handle Objections

Objections are a crucial part of the purchasing decision. It means that potential customers are considering buying and imagining what life would look like with your product or service. Use objections as an opportunity to reinforce the value of what you offer and the benefits of buying it.

Handling objections involves both addressing objections as they are brought up and anticipating them. Not all prospective customers will voice their hesitations so the more you can counter objections automatically, the better. Embed common objections in your sales pitch.

While there are some common objections that most businesses face—price, time, and quality—it’s worth collecting data about the objections your business faces most regularly. Consider exploring objections in your customer research. What were your customers worried about when making their buying decision? What convinced them to buy anyway? Then you can come up with selling techniques for dealing with those objections.

6. Follow Up

Following up with customers is an underestimated part of the sales cycle. Checking in post-sale is important to maintaining positive customer relationships. Show you still care after they’ve handed over their money and ensure they are getting on well with the product. You might even make a repeat sale.

It’s also an opportunity to collect feedback, whether that be positive feedback or constructive criticism for what you could do better next time. Your sales process should constantly be under review and in refinement according to what your customers want from you. Your happiest customers can be your best marketing tool because they are the ones that will spread the word about your business. And don’t forget to ask for reviews to build up your social proof.

In a world where customers feel like they are being sold to at every turn—Google ads, social media ads, Youtube ads, etc.—be disruptive by taking the time to build relationships with leads and nurture them to the point of conversion. These sales tips will help you to do that. Even during a difficult economic situation, business opportunities are out there. Use relationship-focused sales techniques to leverage them.\

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